Brutal absolutely brutal. Do not use this tour company, they do not deliver on their advertised experience and do not use English speaking tour operators. A total amateur outfit and extremely expensive. Their customer service is terrible and are not interested in customer satisfaction. And watch out for the "mandatory" tipping. The worst thing is there is no recourse to Viator or Tripadvisor despite this company tarnishing their name and reputation.
If there is a negative score possible, we would score this -10 as it did not deliver anything that it advertised. Firstly, my wife and I are of Chinese descent but can only speak English. This tour company advertises English speaking tour guides but this was not even close. The entire tour they were silent, no narrative, no summary, nothing. And the few times they spoke, they could only speak Mandarin, not one word of English. Thankfully there were other guests in the van that could translate, otherwise we would have no idea what was going on. Tour guides usually would narrate a 5 hour drive each way, not these ones, they were focused on using Google Maps to figure out directions to Antelope Canyon. We were in a tight Mercedes Benz van with 11 people, it was terribly noisy with young people and the guides were not interested in interacting. When we arrived at Horseshoe Bend, after leaving the Vegas area around 6:30am, the van pulled into the parking lot, parks, and the guide points his finger towards a trail and said "30 minutes". No indication where we were or what we were expected to do. We walked over a kilomtere to get to Horseshoe Bend which took roughly 20 minutes. The sight was fantastic but then we had to hurry back to the van because of the 30 minute limitation (tour advertised one hour stop). We then find out at that point (through translation) that the guides were told the Lower Antelope Canyon was closed due to high wind. So great, we drove 5 hours for nothing, and the tour company didn't check this beforehand? To top it off, the Upper Antelope Canyon tour remained open but it was sold out ($80 per person extra if space was available!!). However, two of the 9 people on this tour had tickets to the Upper Canyon tour so the rest of us had to wait almost 3 hours in the van while they went on their tour. Absolutely ridiculous that they would mix and match tours this way. The 5 hour drive back was not any better, again no narrative, no information, nothing. The icing on the cake was on the way back at a gas stop (the guides couldn't figure out how to fill the tank even, took them 15 minutes to figure out nothing was going in the van), they had the audacity to ask for their $11/person gratuity. Apparently this is mandatory and we didn't want to risk being booted off the van in Arizona so we begrudgingly paid it. An absolute disaster of a tour and tour company. Wasted 25% of our long awaited vacation and was the low point by far on our first trip in 3 years. Do not use this company, they are terrible and there are far better ones out there at cheaper prices, this was not cheap ($300 usd/person). They should have paid us for wasting our entire day. The advertising specifically says refunds would be offered for changes due to weather conditions and now they refuse to honor it, they even stop responding to my emails. TripAdvisor should be ashamed of having this tour being sold through their site, as that is the only reason we purchased through TripAdvisor.
This was a long day. You are picked up in a small bus, seating was tight, no leg room, and if you sit in the back you will feel every bump on the ride. Takes about 4.5 hours to get there. Tour was advertised that a box lunch was offered. We received McDonald’s Big Mac burgers. There was no tour guide on the bus only the bus driver. Every seat was taken so if you wanted to stretch out your body it wasn’t possible.
At the lower antelope canyon destination a tour guide was provided by those that ran the canyon tours. Then after this we had to go to another canyon to pick up another couple who went on a different tour. We waited an additional 35 minutes for them. Then we were taken to horseshoe bend and had an hour to enjoy this. Then we had about a 4.5 hour tour drive back and also hit a traffic jam that extended our time by roughly 45 minutes. On the time to and from the canyon there was one stop for the driver to get gas for the mini bus. During this time you could get out of the mini bus to use the restroom and purchase food. We started the tour at 5:40 am and arrived back at the hotel at 8:30 pm. The destinations were breathtaking.